


love me just enough

by rilla



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 10:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1938357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry turns thirty, surrounded by his married friends. </p><p>'Since he moved back to London it’s been good seeing them, all his crazy married friends, Liam and Sophia, Louis and Eleanor, Zayn and Perrie, Niall and Jade. Somehow while he wasn’t watching, while he was dating and drinking and having fun, all his friends seem to have settled down. Honestly. They don’t know what they’re missing out on.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	love me just enough

**Author's Note:**

> So this is loosely based on Sondheim's Company. More pairings will be added as it continues. I'm planning on posting a part a week. Any feedback is appreciated!

The thing about Harry’s annual surprise birthday party is that ‘annual surprise’ is an oxymoron. It started happening when he was twenty-four, just after the band had gone on its extended hiatus that had turned into a split. That was right after Zayn said, to no one’s surprise, “I’m not happy doing this anymore,” and Niall responded, to everyone’s surprise, “Me neither.” 

So they’d all sort of split apart from each other for a couple of months, and Harry had gone to LA for a while, and he’d seen Niall a few times but that had been pretty much it. And then he’d come back to England for his birthday and _no one had been around_. So he’d hung out with Nick and Daisy and Alexa and his sister, and he’d accidentally got drunk and ridiculous and cried a bit about the fact he’d lost his mates, Louis and Liam and Zayn and Niall, his _boys_ , and they’d never be friends again and their amazing connection would be lost forever. And then Nick did something insane and mad behind his back, and now he has annual birthday parties with them all, in his very own living room. They shuffle him off to wherever during the day, the zoo or the aquarium or – when it was Zayn’s year to occupy him – the Tate Modern, and then he comes home and has to pretend to be surprised when there’s a cake and some of his favourite people cluttering up his living room.

If he’s honest, the thrill is starting to wear off.

Mostly, though, it’s nice. Since he moved back to London it’s been good seeing them, all his crazy married friends, Liam and Sophia, Louis and Eleanor, Zayn and Perrie, Niall and Jade. Somehow while he wasn’t watching, while he was dating and drinking and having fun, all his friends seem to have settled down. And it’s fine, it’s fine, he’s totally happy for them. He likes going to their houses for dinner, letting them relive their single days through him, marvel at his dates and tell him he’s so much fun, he brightens up their lives, they’ve got no idea what they’d do without him.

What he doesn’t like is the slight sadness in their eyes when they wave him off at the end of the night. Jade’s face when she says “Will you be all right by yourself tonight?”, the way Louis says “Are you going out after this?” with just a bit too much frustrated jealousy. They love him, but they also love that they’re not him.

Honestly. They don’t know what they’re missing out on.

*

“Blow out the candles, Harry!” Perrie.

“What are you going to wish for?” Liam.

“You can’t ask someone that, Payno, you absolute dildo.” Louis, of course, because he’s a scandal and a disgrace.

“I can,” Liam objects, because he’s learned to stand up to Louis these days. Harry thinks Louis secretly likes it, although he pretends he doesn’t.

“Shut _up_ ,” Jade says in a hushed voice. “He’s trying to think of a wish to make.” 

Harry focuses on the task at hand. He can see the flickering of the candles behind his closed eyelids, and he can feel the warmth of Nick standing just behind him. Thirty. Bloody hell. He isn’t sure if he likes the idea of it.

“What’s thirty going to be like then, Nick?” he says, quietly. “Am I going to like it?”

He feels Nick’s hand press against his shoulder. “You’re gonna love it, popstar.”

Harry blows out the candles, and only realises afterwards that he forgot to make a wish.

“What’d you wish for?” Perrie asks as soon as he looks up from the cake, from the smoke-hissing candles.

“World peace,” Harry tells her.

“Really?” Niall asks, sounding unimpressed.

“No,” Harry says. His living room feels a lot smaller with nine other people in it, despite the fact it’s usually a pretty good size when he’s invited just Nick or Niall or Gemma over. Sophia reaches for the cake and starts cutting it up, neat and careful, the same way she does at the kids’ birthday parties. Harry kind of prefers those parties to his own. They’re a lot of fun and he’s allowed to chase people around making scary noises. If he did that here, probably no one would be very amused. Well, Louis might be. Actually, he might give it a go later.

Sophia gives him his cake first because, as she says, “You’re the birthday boy!”

Well, that’s unarguable. He crumbles his cake into little pieces before getting stuck in. Nick flings himself down into the chair next to him, long limbs a bit ungainly, and across the table Perrie pretends to feed some cake tenderly to Zayn before laughing uproariously and smearing it over his chin. Harry thinks that if anyone else had tried that on Zayn he’d have looked infuriated before stamping off for a joint and several hours of nice calming comic book time, but as it’s Perrie he just rolls his eyes and looks amused and tries to lick it off. He doesn’t succeed, so she does it for him. It would be disgusting if it wasn’t kind of cute.

But all right, yeah, it’s also a little bit disgusting.

He’s finished his cake and he’s about to get up and find another beer when Eleanor says excitedly from across the table, “Harry, did I tell you about the new girl in my office?”

He shakes his head no, and tries to look interested, but before El can continue Jade interrupts robustly, “Haz! You are not allowed to go out with her until you’ve gone out with my cousin. You’d love him.”

“Right,” Harry says, squishing his last corner of cake until it’s just crumbs. “Sure. I’ll see them.”

“He’ll see them at the same time, maybe,” Nick says helpfully. “He can have threesomes. He _is_ a pop star after all.”

Harry laughs, feeling the weight on his shoulders lift off just a little, and nudges Nick to tell him to shut up. 

“I’ll bruise,” Nick complains. “I’m delicate like a peach.”

Harry can feel himself smiling properly now, and Nick’s not quite frowning, which means making Harry smile properly was kind of the aim. “I’ll give you peach,” Harry tells him, and Nick just grins at him.

“Is that a sex thing?” Louis asks loudly, and smiles with all his sharp teeth when Harry throws him a little glare. Nick just throws his head back and laughs.

The evening wears on; Louis and Nick get drunk and annoying, Niall gets drunk and hilarious, Zayn and Perrie get drunk and touchy-feely, and Liam doesn’t get drunk at all because later he’ll have to drive the babysitter home. (“Oh my God, Liam,” Louis says disgustedly. “You know you’re a millionaire, right? Have you heard of a taxi?”, and Liam just looks faintly apologetic.) Eleanor and Sophia demolish a jar of olives they’ve found in the dark recesses of Harry’s fridge, and Jade manages to prise Perrie and Zayn apart so she can talk to Perrie intently in the corner, blonde and dark heads bent together, Perrie’s pink lipstick bright even from across the room, her face oddly serious. Harry looks around and Zayn’s there behind him, quiet and calm with that air he’s always had of thoughtful authority, smiling a bit as he puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder and slips onto the seat next to him.

“Having a nice birthday?” he asks.

“Hmm,” Harry says, watching Louis pour out Sambuca shots and then pull a lighter out of his pocket with alarming relish in his eyes. “Good, thanks.” He’s slightly concerned about his ceilings now, what with the risk of fire, but Louis’s got the sort of expression that means nothing short of an abrupt rugby tackle will stop him, and Harry’s not really in the mood for that.

Zayn presses his shoulder companionably against Harry’s. “It’ll be over soon,” he says encouragingly.

Harry laughs, despite himself. “I don’t mind. I like it.”

Zayn looks unconvinced, probably because he develops allergies to most other human beings if he’s around them for more than three hours.

“Honestly,” Harry says, and Zayn relaxes a bit. 

“What do you think about all these dates?” he asks. “I know the girls go a bit insane about setting you up with people, but they just want you to be happy.”

“It’s fine,” Harry says carefully. Honestly, he likes meeting new people, particularly ones that his friends know already, because it means they’re less likely to think of him as Harry From One Direction and more like Harry Liam’s Friend or Harry Jade’s Friend or whatever. He likes taking them for dinner and going home with them and then deciding whether to respond to their texts or not. It’s just the bit that comes afterwards that he’s always had problems with. The bit where it’s supposed to lead somewhere. If all relationships were designed to last for three months, he’d be a very happy man.

“Cool,” Zayn says, sounding uncomfortable. “It was just – Pez said you’re probably lonely, and…”

“Actually, I’m not lonely,” Harry points out politely.

“You never spend any time in your house by yourself at all,” Zayn says mildly. It’s not a bad point.

“That doesn’t mean I’m lonely,” Harry tells him. He doesn’t get what the big deal with marriage is anyway. Having to share your bed with the same person every single night and then see them over breakfast, rinse and repeat. The ring on your finger like a tiny gold-barred prison, the promises dead on your lips years ago but having to be repeated every day in your head just so you remember, just so you keep it fair. He thinks it’s probably hard to be nice to the same person every day for the rest of your life. He likes to spread it a little more thinly than that. “Maybe I should tell you you’re lonely too,” he says lightly, “because you haven’t got any friends.”

Zayn laughs, not taking any offence, just like Harry knew he’d react. “I married my best friend, mate,” he says. Perrie looks at them from across the room like she’s heard, and then she makes a ‘wanker’ gesture at Zayn and carries on talking to Jade. Zayn lets out this tiny helplessly amused laugh that he only does around Perrie and then his face screws up into a smile that makes his eyes go all crinkly. 

“I thought I was your best friend,” Harry says, even though he knows he’s not.

“Dream on,” Zayn tells him, not unkind. 

“Sometimes,” Harry says dreamily, “I miss being seventeen. It was nice when I could tell Louis to hold you down and fart on your face when you were being annoying.”

“You probably still could,” Zayn says, with cavalier disregard for his own safety.

“No. I’ve grown up too,” Harry say, trying to be mysterious, but Zayn just looks at him and laughs.

*

Nick hangs around afterwards to help clear up, which means that he lies on Harry’s sofa talking rapturously about a gig he went to last week while Harry wanders around putting party debris into neat piles that he’ll deal with in the morning.

“Your friends have turned into right little boring fuckers, haven’t they,” Nick says, when Harry’s finished pretending to tidy.

Harry leans down and gently shoves at Nick’s feet until he lifts them enough for Harry to sit down on the sofa underneath them. “They’re not boring,” he says, trying to be fair. “They’re just married.”

“Same thing, innit,” Nick says. Harry can see his long toes flexing inside his red socks.

“Well, no,” Harry says, and then admits: “Actually, yeah.” Liam and Sophia have two children. They’re four and eighteen months. Apparently there are still occasional poo explosions with the little one, and sometimes Sophia talks with surprising and slightly scary passion about the hidden camera she’s set up to make sure their babysitter isn’t evil. Louis and Eleanor don’t have children yet, which Harry thinks is a little strange considering Louis loves kids and they’ve been together for about a million years. Then again, neither do Zayn and Perrie, or Niall and Jade. It’s probably because of the hysterical 4AM phonecalls from Liam with babies wailing in the background. They’ve all had a few of those. They’re funny, but only the next morning. So, yeah, sometimes it is boring, hearing Liam and Sophia talk about teething, and hearing Zayn talk about going for long, invigorating walks in the countryside with Perrie, and hearing Niall talk about the house he and Jade are painstakingly renovating, and hearing Louis talk about the latest yoga kick Eleanor’s gone on. When he hears stories like that, he doesn’t especially want it for himself. 

“Still,” Nick says contemplatively, after a moment of reflection. “It looks quite nice, doesn’t it?”

Harry makes a face, and Nick laughs at him, digs him in the ribs. “Christ, Styles. I thought you were the most domestic out of the lot of us.”

“Just because I like a decent tablecloth,” Harry says, without rancour. 

“And Cath Kidston.”

“So what if I like the occasional polka dot? They’re nice,” Harry says, refusing to let himself be undermined. “It’s different, though. I don’t want to sit at home by myself for the rest of my life, but I think maybe that would be better than sitting at home with the _same_ person.”

“As if you ever sit at home at all,” Nick says comfortably, which is a little too close to the truth. Harry frowns at him and then puts the TV on.

*

The thing is. The thing _is_ – well, really, there’s no thing at all, and Harry just isn’t very good at going out with people for more than three months. He doesn’t think he’s a bad boyfriend exactly. He wines and dines people. They go backstage at Coachella and they go to Necker Island and they meet Mick Jagger and they have the occasional spend-up in Alexander McQueen and Burberry, because really, what else is money for? At this point it’s really just a long list of figures on a screen to him. So, no, he doesn’t think that dating him is a bad thing. It’s just that it doesn’t last for long. And he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing either. They have their fun, they part without any bad feelings. It’s enough for him. He thinks that mostly it’s enough for them too. He’s even friends with Taylor now, although he has to admit that took a while, and it was mostly because of Ed. Even still, they’re friendly, and that’s all he cares about.

He’s friends with all the rest too. Kendall, not so much, because her family are a bit scary and he doesn’t want to be on terrible reality TV, and anyway her career is pretty stratospheric these days. But he still talks to Caroline all the time, and Daisy too, and he and Nick are obviously still close – even though maybe what they had wasn’t quite a relationship – and he and Cara have a proper laugh every time they see each other. No hard feelings, that’s the Harry Styles way. So far, it’s working quite well.

He always thought, though, that by thirty maybe he’d be settled down. Have a kid, maybe another one on the way. A wife, or a husband. God knows, he’s never been one to discriminate. But things didn’t work out that way, and he’s actually all right with it. He just wishes that everyone else was.

*

Dates that Harry Styles has been on in February:

1) February 2nd: a hungover roast with Ed’s neighbour’s friend Emma. She mentions her old One Direction posters eight times too many, so Harry makes his excuses and goes home.

2) February 6th: a Harry Potter movie night with Louis’s sister’s friend Benji, who’s eighteen and has just come back from a gap year trip to Thailand and Australia, which he consistently refers to as ‘Oz’. He’s tall with a lean bronzed torso and a tattoo of a world map spanning his lower back, which looks like fresh ink that he probably isn’t quite used to yet. He makes Harry feel like he’s about a hundred and considerably less worldly than he actually is, probably on purpose, except then after they’ve had sex he’s so quiet and nervous that Harry’s a bit worried he’s hurt him.

3) February 18th: dinner at a nice Thai restaurant with Cara’s older sister Poppy, who’s recently got divorced, which is really sad because Harry went to her hen party years ago and she was really excited. She drinks too much red wine at dinner and has to get out of the taxi on the way home to be sick. She shows Harry pictures of her two children for an hour when they get back to her house and then she passes out on the sofa. He stays over to make sure she doesn’t asphyxiate in the night, and makes her mashed banana on toast for breakfast the next morning.

4) February 23rd: several cocktails at Groucho’s with Liam’s babysitter Samantha, who he met and asked out after accidentally showing up at Liam and Sophia’s house when they weren’t in. She turns out to be extremely flexible so everything about the sex is great except for when she gives Harry part of a handjob and he finds out that probably if she had a job interview her handshake would be described as ‘extremely, extremely firm’. After rigorous testing afterwards, he’s fairly sure there isn’t any permanent damage.

5) February 31st: a French film with Perrie’s friend Alex, who used to dance on the Little Mix tour. His eyebrows are too plucked for Harry’s tastes, but otherwise he’s extremely fit, and for that Harry forgives the fact he admits once the film’s over that he ‘doesn’t like things with subtitles’. They have loud, energetic sex despite the fact that Alex is almost hurtfully interested in Harry’s extra nipples.

It’s fine. It really is.

*

On March 3rd, he turns up to Liam and Sophia’s house with two bottles of wine (one white, one red) and some biscuits for the kids, which Sophia takes out of his hands and tuts at as she takes them into the kitchen, presumably to hide them.

“I thought they might like them?” Harry says hopefully.

“They’re not eating sugar at the moment,” Liam explains, pointing Harry towards the living room. “Makes them too hyper.” He gives Harry puppy dog eyes then, and says, “Mate, no offence, but could you take off your shoes?”

Harry raises an eyebrow, but does as he says.

“It’s just easier,” Liam explains. “Once Milo ate some dog poo because he thought it was chocolate.”

“You really didn’t need to tell me that,” Harry says politely.

“I really didn’t need to see him throwing up actual shit,” Liam says, a little too vehemently.

Harry nods, because that is extremely true. Despite the throwing up shit incident, though, and the fact he isn’t allowed to wear shoes, he quite likes Sophia and Liam’s house. It’s all very inoffensive. There’s a nice coffee table with some magazines on it, and a big glass vase of roses on the mantelpiece, and a soft beige chenille blanket over the back of the sofa. He can imagine the two of them curled up on the sofa watching _University Challenge_ or cartoons depending on whose night it is to choose, and heating up milk for the boys, and yawning at each other, and going to bed at about half past nine most nights. He’s pretty sure that this is what Liam always wanted. He seems settled and happy. There’s part of Harry that doesn’t understand how he can be satisfied by this, though, when there’s such a big world out there. It makes him look down on Liam just a little bit, although he knows that might not be fair.

Sophia comes back in with wine, which is highly appreciated. Harry drains his first glass so quickly that Sophia shoots Liam an ‘is he an alcoholic?’ glance. It’s the sort of glance that Harry is extremely good at noticing these days, along with other glances such as the ‘I know he claims to be bisexual but I think he’s actually gay’ glance and the ‘I think his happiness is just a veneer for extreme loneliness’ glance and the ‘I think his girlfriend’s a slag’ glance. It’s unfortunate that people keep trying to set him up, but that every time he actually goes out with someone more than once, they get relentlessly torn apart by his friends. Last time he had a proper girlfriend, Zayn and Perrie held an intervention during which Perrie said, very politely, “No offence, Haz, we love you, but we also think she’s a trollop who’s after your money. One day you’ll wake up and realise she’s nicked your watch,” as Zayn nodded dutifully next to her.

“So how are you?” Harry asks, after a bit.

“We’re fine,” Sophia nods. “Max is into the local primary, which is such a relief because it’s a lovely place – such small class sizes. And Milo—”

“Has recovered from the shit incident?” Harry asks.

“Just about,” Liam says, with a face that indicates that Liam himself hasn’t recovered in the slightest.

“Milo is doing excellently,” Sophia says. “He can write his own name now.”

“Isn’t he only a year and a half old?”

“He’s extremely advanced,” Sophia tells him proudly.

“Particularly impressive with Liam as a dad,” Harry deadpans, and they both laugh. It’s funny when Liam laughs these days, because he’s always had these lines around his eyes when he lets out a proper belly laugh, but these days they’re deepening and spreading out. It’s actually nice, in Harry’s opinion, because it means he probably laughs a lot with Sophia and the kids. They probably laugh more than Harry does, although then again, he probably gets more time to watch _Friends_ repeats than they do, so maybe it’s fifty-fifty.

Sophia’s done homemade pizzas that look a bit lopsided because Max helped sprinkle the cheese on earlier in the day, and a salad thing that’s actually pretty excellent. There’s a fruit bowl in the middle of the table that Harry helps himself liberally from when they’re having cups of tea after dinner, and he’s in the middle of carefully de-coring an apple when Sophia asks, “So when are you free?”

Harry blinks at her, putting his apple down on the sofa arm. “I’m usually free,” he says, with some trepidation.

“Because you _promised_ to go out with my PA, and you haven’t yet. She’s nice, and she’s pretty, and she wasn’t a big 1D fan, so that won’t be weird. Apparently she liked The Wanted?” Sophia says.

Liam and Harry make simultaneously disgusted faces.

“You can’t judge her on her choice in boy bands!” Sophia says, digging Liam in the chest with her fingernail. “She’s lovely, Harry. Give me your phone, I’ll put her number in.”

Harry does so, a little warily, and Sophia taps it in. “The thing is, Harry,” she says, as she types in the name of whoever it is, “we’re worried about you.” She looks up at him, her long dark hair falling around her face, her expression hesitant but honest, and Harry feels that twist in the gut that he does every time someone says something like that. Partly annoyance, and partly confusion. What sort of vibe does he give off, anyway? The vibe of a pathetic, lonely person? God, he hopes not. He doesn’t feel that way. Sure, there are moments when he’s home alone and – and – well, the thing is, he was stupid for buying such a big house to begin with. That’s the problem here.

He says, “Oh, don’t be!” and takes his phone back, already mentally composing a complainy text to Nick. _God, everyone is an arsehole_ , he’ll write. No, he won’t. He already knows he won’t. That would be mean. He really hates being mean.

“Are you okay by yourself, Haz?” Liam asks. He’s got that expression of genuine concern that always makes everyone around him stop worrying about their own problems and immediately start asking Liam if he’s okay instead. It’s always been quite handy whenever Harry hasn’t wanted to talk about something, because when Liam starts to look like he’s about to have an empathetic breakdown it really diverts everyone’s attention away from everything else.

“The bachelor lifestyle actually suits me,” Harry says, sounding as flippant as possible. He doesn’t know how to sound like you actually mean what you’re saying while also sounding airy and breezy. “But I mean, what you have is – it’s lovely. Just got to meet the right girl or boy first, right? You two were lucky.”

It turns out that’s the right thing to say, because Liam immediately looks watery-eyed and reaches out to grip Sophia’s hand. For her part, Sophia throws him a fond glance. “We are extremely lucky,” Liam says, pronouncing every word very carefully, and all of a sudden Harry realises he’s quite drunk.

“So how do you…” Harry considers how best to phrase this without coming off as incredibly insulting. “I know the kids take up a lot of your time, right? So how do you do stuff, just the two of you?”

“Well, we’ve taken up swing dancing,” Sophia says brightly.

“I – what?” Harry asks, flummoxed despite himself.

At least Liam looks slightly embarrassed as he nods and says, “Yeah. Actually, yeah. We’re doing swing dancing every Thursday night.”

Harry goggles at them both. “How have the papers not picked up on this?”

Sophia laughs and pats Liam’s arm, and says, “I suppose you boys just aren’t very interesting anymore.”

And ain’t that the painful truth. Harry bares his teeth at them in a vague approximation of a smile, and then he says, half curious, half lost for any other words, “Why don’t you show me your dance?”

Liam and Sophia look at each other and do some silent communication, which some couples are very good at – Zayn and Perrie barely have to say anything aloud, for example, and Ed and Taylor are pretty nifty at it too. They seem to get their wires crossed somewhere along the lines though, because as Sophia says “Sure!” Liam says “No fucking way.”

Harry watches, spellbound, as their silent communication turns into a silent argument, which Sophia evidently wins, because she gets to her feet and smooths down her perfect grey dress, which isn’t actually creased at all. “We have some special music we practise to,” she says, and goes over to fiddle with the CD player. _Don’t_ , Liam mouths viciously at Harry behind her back, although if Harry’s honest, he’s too stunned to laugh at them.

“We’ll do the Charleston. Move the coffee table, Liam,” Sophia says determinedly. Harry helps him, because he’s very obliging, and smirks right into Liam’s face as he does it. Liam goes furiously pink. It’s completely hilarious.

The music is something that Harry remembers his grandma and granddad playing when he was little. There’s no one singing but it’s from the Duke Wellington and Ella Fitzgerald era and it sounds like sunshine. Liam and Sophia are just barely in time with it, even Harry can tell that. They limp raggedly along with the music, stamping and twisting their hips like they’re on _Strictly_ and there’s no pro dancer to chivvy them along. They dance like they’re fighting, like they’re trying to win. They wave their hands like they’re trying to knock each other out and they kick their legs like they’re trying to score goals. They jump at the same time, just about, and behind them the clock wobbles on the mantelpiece. Sophia sits on top of Liam’s back and they squirm along on the floor like they’re dying goldfish, and then he somehow jumps up and yanks Sophia upright and onto his back. Her feet whip wildly through the air and there’s a sudden smash, the sound of glass crashing and splintering, and the big vase of roses is on the floor, water flooding over the mahogany floorboards.

Liam’s still for a second, his eyes bulging out of his head, Sophia still perched on his back.

This is the single greatest moment of Harry’s life.

“Oh dear,” he says, because he feels like someone should say something.

“For fuck’s sake!” Sophia shouts, maybe too loudly, and wriggles furiously until Liam puts her down. “You swung me in the wrong direction!”

“I didn’t! You didn’t move right!” Liam says plaintively.

Water is starting to soak into the edge of their beautiful beige rug. For a second, Harry thinks about pointing that out, but Sophia’s rolling her eyes so violently it looks like they’re about to fall out of her head. “You were never committed to swing dancing,” she spits at Liam.

“That’s because it’s _swing dancing_ ,” Liam snarls, which is a very valid point in Harry’s opinion. Now probably isn’t the time to express an opinion, though. That’s fine. He can wait.

“It was important to me!” Sophia shouts, and then she looks at the spreading water and the half dead roses and says, “Oh my God. We need to clean this up. God, there’s glass fucking everywhere. I hate your fucking no shoes policy!”

“It was your sodding policy!” Liam protests.

“Because you trekked dog shit onto my floors and let your son eat some of it!” Sophia screams.

Harry is starting to feel a bit ignored, which he isn’t a fan of. He says vaguely, “Where are your carrier bags? I’ll go and get one.” Surely they’ve got one of those big carrier bags that holds fourteen thousand others. Even Harry does, and he really tries hard to use string bags. The thing is, it’s hard to carry string bags in your pockets when you wear skinny jeans. It’s a problem he spends maybe too much time contemplating.

He doesn’t get an answer, because Liam’s too busy saying heatedly “I hate swing dancing. I hate it. I didn’t mind it when you made me do ballroom. At least the waltz is graceful!” so he just goes into the hallway and starts to look around for a bag that might hold broken glass without giving way and causing even more problems. He finds one in his coat pocket that used to hold the wine and biscuits, and then he hears “Uncle Harry?” from the stairs and looks up to see Max.

He’s a really adorable child, although admittedly Harry thinks most children are extremely adorable. But Max is particularly cute. He’s got brown hair that flops into his dark eyes and the same chubby cheeks that Liam had when he was little. He’s actually a bit like a Liam clone, except he’s somehow picked up the plummiest London accent Harry’s ever heard. Not that accents have anything to do with cloning, he reminds himself. But science is beside the point.

“Hello, Maximilian!” he says, and climbs a couple of stairs so he can grab Max round the waist and pick him up. 

“That’s not my name,” Max says tiredly, leaning his head on Harry’s shoulder. He smells all sweet and sleepy, like Lux did whenever Harry gave Lou a hand and carried the baby from hotel rooms to taxis to airports to private jets. He misses Lux being this age. Apparently she’s got a boyfriend now, which makes Harry feel like a disapproving grandfather.

“Maximus then,” Harry says, and kisses Max’s head. “I like your pyjamas.” They’ve got cars on. If they had them in adult size, Harry would probably consider buying them ironically.

“Thank you,” Max said. “Why are Mummy and Daddy making a noise?”

“They knocked over that big vase of flowers. Silly Mummy and Daddy!” Harry says, because while he doesn’t believe in lying to children, he thinks half-truths are pretty much okay. Looking Max in the eye and saying “I’m afraid your parents have turned into screaming swing dancing lunatics so you’ll probably have to go into care,” might not go down very well.

“Oopsy,” Max says. His voice is muffled around his thumb now. Harry takes him back upstairs and puts him back into bed, and stays in the room until he falls asleep again, all snuffly and curled up around his favourite cuddly rhinoceros. Harry feels quite proud of himself; he could absolutely do this parenting thing. Maybe he should. Maybe he should find himself a nice girl and have a baby, or a nice boy who wants to go through the adoption process. But then again, if he does that maybe he’ll end up making wonky pizzas and doing swing dancing and screaming about dog poo in front of his friends, and he doesn’t think that would suit him very much. 

On the bright side, he can’t hear Liam and Sophia doing their banshee impressions anymore, so he gets to his feet and tiptoes downstairs, hoping there haven’t been any sneaky murders while he’s been out of the room. When he finds them again they’re slumped on the sofa, Liam’s arm around Sophia’s shoulders. The glass and roses have been all cleared up, although there’s a big wet stain on the carpet. They look too tired to care.

“Max woke up,” Harry explains. 

“Oh God,” Sophia says. One hand is over her forehead. She looks like she’s getting a headache. “Should I go upstairs? Is he okay?”

“I think he’s gone back to sleep now,” Harry tells them.

“Oh. Oh, good. You know, I don’t think I’ve had a full night’s sleep in four years?” She looks at Liam, who shakes his head. “Really, Harry. Four years.”

“That’ll explain why the Charleston got you a bit off balance then,” Harry says easily, and Sophia laughs, a quiet exhausted choking noise.

“We might go to a pottery class instead,” Liam says, squeezing Sophia’s shoulder.

“That’ll be nice. Make a new vase. You need one,” Harry suggests, which gets a proper laugh out of the two of them.

It doesn’t take long for his taxi to come after that. On his way home he gets a text from Sophia that thanks him for the wine and tells him to call her PA and completely ignores her near mental breakdown. Harry goes over to Nick’s house so he can tell him about the mad dancing and get drunk and maybe give him a blowjob, but when he gets there the lights are all out, and as it turns out, Harry isn’t really in the mood.

*

Harry’s date with Sophia’s PA doesn’t go too badly, except for when she forgets how she knows Harry and accidentally calls Sophia a bitch for not letting her leave work early when she had a coke hangover and couldn’t stop grinding her teeth. Then she spends ten minutes begging Harry not to get her fired, which is awkward. They have a laugh after that, though; they finish their pizzas at the little Italian place in Soho that Harry’s been to a few times before, and then they go to find a bar. They demolish a bottle of wine between them pretty quickly and then they move onto cocktails, and before too long she’s half draped over him and they’re somehow kissing, her hand moving across his crotch. The problem with that – as he learned so many years ago – is that hard-ons in skinny jeans are actually fairly painful, so he wants to find somewhere private, and fast.

They take a taxi back to his house in Hampstead, which she pretends to marvel over. She requests a tour and he shows her his living room and his reception room and his dining room and his kitchen and goes into detail about what each of the pans hanging over his worktop is for. As he’s explaining how he makes crepes suzette with the little brass one she rolls her eyes and says “You were supposed to take me to the bedroom and then fuck me.”

And right, that makes sense.

They end up having pretty good sex, actually. He gets the best blowjob he’s had in a while – not since the last time he and Nick got drunk together, just the two of them – and she’s quite bendy and athletic. She’s completely bald down there, which as a stylistic choice isn’t one that Harry’s all that fond of, but it’s not like he’s about to complain. That would be extremely rude and strange. So he goes down on her until she comes, her thighs all shaky around his head and her taste sweet and salty on his tongue, and smiles smugly at her as he sits up afterwards. 

She’s not quite a nice girl, he thinks afterwards when he’s half asleep and her breathing has evened out into something rhythmic and generous next to him. But that’s okay; he doesn’t mind girls who aren’t nice for now. Maybe not long-term, and obviously even the less nice girls have to be nice to serving staff and old people and children, but for now maybe it’s fun. 

He looks at the shadows on his ceiling and thinks blearily of Sophia, and how reliable she is, how she’s got her life entirely sorted out and knows exactly what she wants; and Jade with her specially decorated library with its wall of books that she holes herself up in sometimes; and Perrie, with her wild blonde hair and fizzy, bubbly sense of humour; and Eleanor, with her calm voice and sweet smile. The girl next to him is none of those things. She’s got plenty of things of her own, but he doesn’t know them well enough yet. Doesn’t know her. But there are so many girls and boys and so little time, and he likes her enough for tonight, but he doesn’t know if he could fall in love with her. He doesn’t even know if he _wants_ to fall in love with her.

The next morning he makes her eggs on toast and kisses her goodbye, simple and sweet. For now it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at flomps, and twitter is foracorkscrew. SAY HI!


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